Juniper

sic et hominum multis fortuna sine flore est

PLINY

It is late night, the unlighted side of leaves, I fumble with

your name

as if some spell of mine where I am powerless could bring

out of the waste

you thought you were, the everlasting winter of the evergreen,

what you

were always waiting for. Impatient patience, as you felt

the gathering

over and over-over and over knew the troubled start within

of what

persuaded it would make the leap at last, out through

the bars of branches

to the furthest points. Pruning each time the monstrous

and monotonous

outgrowth of leaves to fall back to the root of things, to

wait, to wait

right season. Are not all living things allowed not to be

cursed for what

was blasted in their will? Hardest of all, what holds

withholds to cry

richness of hope, perhaps, but poverty of luck. You had

conceived your lack,

yet envied nothing, no one. Let that be said. It is no little thing.

How can I compensate, condone, console? I am no gardener

grafting in the dark.

I bring you what you knew too well, bad luck, a poverty

of words that will not

flower, except your pride refuse a gift no other has to give,

accept

familiar failure as a kind of love that lives, for what it's worth,

on absences, out of all seasons, without roots or leaves or flowers.